Menu

Friday, June 27, 2008

State matters -police

Police, supposed to be protectors of the state and people. Most of us have seen how bad the police could be, in most of the indian movies. That is true mostly, but there are some good people as well.

I met police few months back, when some miscreants stopped the bus I am travelling and started breaking the window glasses. They damaged the front glass (infront of the driver) and also few of the window glasses.

It happened somewhere near Kandukur(on the way to kalwakurthy\Srisailam from hyd). Some how some of us(passengers) were managed to catch hold of one guy in the team and took him to the kandukur police station. S.I in that station is ditto copy of the corrupted police we see in the movies. He almost took the stand of the miscreants and started doing settlment like penalty of 1000 or 1500/ from the miscreants, while the actual damage was more than 3000/-. I was really shouting at the SI, asking him whether this is what he is supposed to do. Then we came out of the police station and went for settlement directly with the miscreants. they gave the conductor 3500/- for damanges and few hundred rupees for passengers who had minor injuries. If you know any movie producer who is looking for some bad police man, recommend this guy, he is the right guy for that wrong role.Well, this SI (dont remember his name, but he had a muslim name[no offence meant]). Those guys are from the local area and if SI behaves against them, he will have issues. Now a days real estate value is reaching sky, and hence Rangareddy district police have lot of good future in terms of settlements.

Now looking at the Job of the police, it is really difficult one. How many of us know that if a person is in police custody for 1 day, Police station can claim Rupee 1 for the food expenses of that person. Most of the police stations do not claim this amount. Imagine what u can make out of 1 Rupee? we cannot get even a cup of tea.

There are 2 types of custodies. Police custody, meaning the person is held by police and he must be presented in the court within 24 hours of the arrest. Judicial custody, meaning the culprit is in the custody of the judge. Judges send the culprit to jail. so essentially judical custody means, short term jail.

Most of the hard core criminals do not reveal the facts in the first instance and generally 3rd degree is required for around 2 to 3 days minimum to extract the facts from the culprits. But police cannot keep the culprit for more than 24 hours in legal terms. So what they do is they keep the culprit in their control, but they just don't record it.

In unfortunate cases, innocents too suffer and some times, innocent people will be forced to accept the wrong things.

Stationary:The kind of paper work that involves with day to day cases require lot of stationary, papers and other stuff. Often the cost of the staionary is proportional to the number of people involved with the case. But the government spending is too less in stationary expenses. How do they manage? they either extract it while doing settlements or get funding from DONORS.

Good police will always have difficult conditions with politicians. Remember the Balakrishna - Bellam konda suresh shoot out case. Balakrishna did shoot suresh multiple rounds. As per the information from reliable sources, Suresh has a bullet in his body even now.

In cases like this Victims and their cooperation is very important but they often bend and turn hostile to police. There was some settlement that happened and Bellam konda suresh got hell lot of money (around 8 Crores or so) and hence he turned hostile to police stating he didnt see the person who did the shooting.Think of the fate of the police in this single scenario. Court needs witness and the main victim is not ready for any statement against Balakrishna.Either get something from the people behind and keep quit or face the wrath of the top brass including transfer. Usually people prefer first option.

And now Pandurangadu is in theatres. Balakrishna is supposed to be behind the bars but still making movies.

Kind of the powers police department has are too funny. Normal police cannot stop a polluting vehicle. A traffic police can stop a polluting vehicle, but if the driver of the vehicle produces a pollution certificate, he becomes helpless but to leave the vehicle go. RTA has the supreme powers but they are always busy in issuing licenses and collecting taxes etc.

The Maruti omni, pollution checkup vehicles are a big joke. RTA gives them permission and what they do is to give pollution test certitificate to all the vehicles at the cost of little extra money irrespective of the actual pollution levels of the vehicles. The pollution certificates issued are not updated to a central system at all. So if we cannot validate if the certificate issued is a valid one or not.

Traffic policeOne of the most hated job in this world is being traffic man.I get to hate this people on a daily basis. You can find these white dress men at any major junction doing some chit chat or extracting some money from people who dont wear helment or do not carry pollution certitifcate or some other papers of the vehicles.

In most of the junctions, we get more traffic jams becuase there is one traffic man trying to control the traffic. These people, I doubt, really might haven't been trained at all on how to manage traffic. Mostly if there is no traffic man, then traffic flows smoothly.

Once i stopped a traffic inspector on the way to office (mehdipatnam to gachibowli) and asked him why he is not wearing helmet. His answer is he cannot talk on walkie talkie,if he wears helmet.

But are these people trained properly. Do they have proper oxygen supplies or atleast are they been provided wiht tea/water expenses? I heard they got pollution masks few months back, but they are not useful now. they need to change the filter every 3 to 4 days which cost Rs 5/- not a big amount but they are not available locally and need to be ordered from some other city.

Disciplinepolice cannot do strikes, they cannot raise their voice against their sufferings with their bosses. Mostly high level officers are always protected. What they look for is... Am I given good accommodation, Do I have gun men, Am i given a vehicle and driver etc and I am happy. I do not need to know how my subordinates are doing.

PoliticsPoliticians control the police to max extent. We have seen how police have arrested 'Andhra Jyothy' editor and other scribes, just in the name of burning an effigy. there are real people who are burnt alive every day, and police just doesnt care much.In andhra jyothy case, there is no doubt it is the act of the Chief Minister Mr. Reddy. He is growing more polished day by day. He knows how to take revenge on the people he doesn't like.

LeavesIf we look at the leave calender of the police it is really surprising. they generally dont get leaves at all. theirs is kind of 24*7*365 kind of job. VIP visits, strikes, naxalites and hell lot of things make the leaves as a big joke. people at middle tier (like SI, CI) too do not get proper leaves. Work-Life balance of the police is really at risk.

RTIFew of the RTI requests that I always wanted to raise with govt/police head quarter are

1.No of police in the state and leaves availed per designation.Year |Disignation |No of people |Actual holidays per head |total holidays actually taken holidays|.2.Stationary expenses per case on an average, and total number of cases booked in the state per year and the expenses granted or reimbursed per year. 3.How many person days of police custody was reported and how much of expense reimbursement has happened?

4.What is the plan year by year for training the state police and actual implementation.Do the police really have training on firing etc on periodically? If yes please provide the details.